Written by Ekrem Krasniqi @E_H_Krasniqi
Conversation, November 2011, Prishtina:
“What is this building that is so beautiful Ekrem?” he asked me.
“Which building, Jahir?” I asked.
“That big one in front of us, with the blue windows?” he replied.
A little later I understood what was going on with his question.
“The main government building, dear Jahir…you build it with your own hands, along with Lut and 2,300 other friends, brothers and sisters who were killed in the war and others who are alive, dear Jahir,” I replied, with my voice shaking.
He didn’t speak for a few seconds, and when he realized that I realized that he hadn’t been to Prishtina’s main square, “Mother Teresa”, even after 12 years of freedom… he fell silent for a moment… Then he started to tell me his own story life of after 12 June 1999.
“When I come to Prishtina, and I’ve only been to the offices at the entrance to Prishtina 3-4 times, I’ve come to sort out the documents for a disability pension, and as soon as I’m done I immediately return to Stanovc… But don’t worry about me coming here with you today… since you’re the son-in-law of the Menxhiqi’s..,” he explained to me with a bit of humour.
Conversation, May 2021:
“Ekrem, I didn’t want to tell you… because I know you’ll be heartbroken …”, Luti began talking to me over the phone.
“What happened, Lut?” I asked.
“Jahir is dead… he went away the poor…”, Luti continued…
“…and when, O Lut?” I asked.
“In November… I couldn’t even organize a KSF ceremony for Jahir’s funeral… Jahiri left me … we buried him like this…,” my friend, Lutfi Menxhiqi, was explaining to me.
Jahir’s post-1998-1999-war life:
Jahir Igrishta lived on a 61 Euro war disability pension until 2012.
He was a KLA soldier, wounded in the war. He suffered from abscess even after the war.
Later I heard that his pension had also been increased to over 120 euros.
Jahiri, Luti, and a third person whose name I don’t know, fell ill with Tuberculosis in the mountains of northern Albania in 1993.
They had gone, like the others, to train to get ready for the coming war for Kosovo’s freedom of today.
They had recovered in Germany, and then returned, and for two full years (1998-1999) they were KLA soldiers at the front.
Jahir and Luti… were lucky enough to “enjoy” the freedom of Kosovo and their own, each in their own way, both Jahir who is no longer with us, and Luti who is still with us.
Continuation of conversation, November 2011:
“I’ve done it dear Lut’s son-in-law… I don’t need more, Ekrem, I just came to Prishtina with you, because you are Luti’s son-in-law. Don’t bother about me. I’m fine,” Jahir Igrishta told me, as we approached the beautiful, tall building with blue windows at the top of “Mother Teresa” Prishtina Square.
“What are you saying, Jahir, I don’t understand you…What you mean when you are saying I’ have don it?” I replied.
“I have enough of these 61 Euro pension… I also have a garden, and sometimes I sell potatoes in Vushtrri… I’m fine, Ekrem… We’re free from Serbia now… I don’t need much more…”, he explained to me.
Conversation continued, May 2021:
“Even during the war, Jahiri would often tell me, ‘even if we get killed, Lut, I’m glad your family is sharing the bread with my family,'” Luti now tells me of some of his conversations with Jahiri during the 1998/99 war at the front.
“His family was in a poor situation even before the war. Poor before the war, poor after the war…”, Luti continues…in a telephone conversation.
“Many times when he was sick after the war, he kept it a secret from me, saying that I was very careful about him and so that he wouldn’t worry about me. He kept it a secret from me even when his condition deteriorated…” Luti confesses.
“…I knocked on the doors of many institutions many times for a job for him, but I never met anyone who was willing to give me a job for Jahiri…” Luti tells me for the umpteenth time this time to.
Jahir Igrishta left no biological heirs behind him…he has one heir granted to him and his wife.
His wife is blind, but I drank the best coffee (with lots of sugar) in my life from her hand, on the balcony of Jahir’s roofless house in 2011, together with Luti.
Jahir friend, how much I owe you, and we owe you, my wife Miradije Menxhiqi, our twins, Petrit and Atdhe, and our daughter Ema…, to you, Luti and your 2300 KLA friends who are there with you, and to others who are alive today and who were in the war with you.
THANK YOU for my freedom, my family’s, ours and all of Kosovo, dear Jahir The Brave.
Forgive me, Jahir,, because even after 27 years I still can’t know what to believe and what not to believe anymore when I see what I’m seeing in today’s Kosovo, yours, Lut’s, mine… in the Kosovo of all of us.
You are free now there…
I bow to you and say goodbye!!! Ekrem, the Brussels journalist.
See you soon, Jahir, my friend…
